Here Comes The Sun
by Nachtgeschichte
Summary: The star thanks to which we are able to live on Earth turns against us. Will the Penguins prevent the doom? Preapocalypse and apocalypse, characters' death.
1. Evil Science (Prologue)

_A/N: I'm not a scientist, astronomer, visionary or God knows who. I'm just a writer who gets catastrophic dreams. It's not an essay on science but a simple fic, so I'm sorry that things probably won't make sense, just enjoy the story. It won't be long and not so very intense as it may appear. _

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**Evil Science (prologue)**

Private brushed his toy, impatiently glancing towards the clock on the wall in the penguins' headquarters. 2300 hours, or in other words 11 p.m, was coming closer, thanks heaven. Turning the pink plastic horse around, the young soldier looked into its eyes which showed no emotions whatsoever - no pity, no sparkle of hope, no understanding. He didn't search for them anyway. It was about the colour of the glassy eyes. Green. What a nice colour. He couldn't recall when was the last time he had seen it on a flower. Or when was the last time he had seen a plant on that matter. Fungi in the corridors didn't count. Their colour didn't even resemble green. So slimy and so ugh, unappetizing. The small penguin almost gagged at that thought, really hoping that the team wouldn't be forced to eat those. On the other hand, they couldn't be so bad. Probably not worse than the imitation fish cakes they were forced to eat since all fish were gone.

"Ah, Princess Self-Respectra, few more minutes and we can go outside. Alice will bring us some water." Although the avian tried to say it in a sing-alike tone, his words turned out harsh, so he cleaned his throat but that didn't help much either. The bird simply needed water. Just like the rest of the penguin commando. "Tasty water...and some awful fish cakes."  
Hearing the magic word 'water', Rico sat up right and threw his long tongue out of his beak. The Pavlov Effect caused that the weapon expert's saliva dropped down. It landed on miss Percy's dress but the penguin didn't mind the misfortune, still having the mentioned liquid on his mind. Tasty water...

"Nah, Private. Weight what you're saying, we don't need another of Rico's psycho fits." Skipper glared towards the younger soldier, absent-mindedly placing his white king back on the chessboard. The flat-headed penguin's move options were limited due to the fact that the most important piece got cornered. Still, the bird refused to give up voluntary. If only he could concentrate on the play but recently his mind was flooded with more important thoughts and even worries.

"Checkmate, Skipper. Fourth time in a row, if I were you, I would try to come up with a strategy. Maybe you need some suggestions?" Kowalski smugly folded flippers on his chest as the leader growled, watching the analyst's black queen in front of his fallen king. "That's nonsense, Kowalski! And you know what you can do with your lousy chess suggestions?!"  
"Aww, Skippah. I'm sure you will win the next match." Private giggled under his breath, he knew he shouldn't make fun of their commanding officer but at some point during the recent events, Skipper's authority lost its power. Probably because of how vulnerable he became in the face of the approaching doom and how helpless he seemed in comparison with human army forces.

Sensing that his cheer up speech irritated the leader even more, Private tried to track Skipper's anger towards something or better said someone else: "Last time you were so angry with K'walski when you two discussed the cause behind the huge Sun."  
"It was Blowhole. It's stated black and white in the files." The commander pointed out as he got reminded of that topic. The second-in-command immediately shook his head and corrected the older penguin: "Which were written by your flipper. It's the Sun itself."  
"Blowwww-hooooole." Stubborn, Skipper spelt out slowly and added: "That tricky dolphin teamed up with the Space Squids. Those monsters didn't allow humans on Mars, killing each and every expedition. So, we're trapped here on this planet with sauna at day and day at night."  
"It wouldn't solve the problem." Kowalski took out his clipboard and drew a quick diagram of the Solar System but with two differences – Mercury was gone and the Sun came dangerously close to Venus. "Because Mars will be 'absorbed' by the Sun too, just like in the case of Mercury." With a thick line, the scientist separated Mars from Jupiter. "Getting smaller in mass but larger in size, our star will expand even more to the point that all the inner planets will be incinerated. The process will stop right here, before the Asteroid Belt and then the Sun will decrease and finally fade out." Drawing arrows while explaining, Kowalski finished by crossing Earth out.

"I have heard that theory five times already, Kowalski. At least five times! I thought that by now you would invent something to prevent it, soldier." Skipper put the tips of flippers on his temples. He had never paid attention to those weird cosmic theories of destruction, as if Earth wasn't a part of something bigger. He used to take care of things he had an influence on. The abysmal situation ticked him off.  
"We would need long distance spaceships which could be able to travel faster than light. Or a time travel device. Theoretically, we could also launch a rocket towards the Sun but the possibility that it would explode instantly is too great and the impact on Earth would be fatal. Unfortunately, neither me nor the humans have the high-technology developed to such extend to invent those items so they would prove to be successful." Flipping over the page, the smart penguin continued to doodle.

Skipper tried really hard to wait until Kowalski would be done with his scientific babble but enough was enough. Finally snapping, he threw the clipboard out of the taller penguin's flipper. The pages with drawings of Chronotron, their 'vintage' space rocket and a missile landed on the clean floor. Kowalski sent him an annoyed look, sure the vision of doom didn't seem enjoyable but it wasn't a reason to react so nervously towards his works. "We can't win with science, sir."

"Science is evil." Skipper turned around to cut the pointless conversation and waddled towards a strangely looking half-electronic thermometer. Actually, it looked like a normal thermometer but it reached above the ceiling of the HQ to the surface. Instead of mercury the device was filled up with liquid gold, tungsten replaced glass and it had a digital display. "Let's call it a night, boys. Up the ladder to the fresh air." The leader pointed at the entrance.  
"Watha!" Rico cried out and left his girlfriend behind, in no time climbing up the ladder. He was followed by Kowalski and Skipper. Private clapped his flippers but before he joined his friends, the young soldier patted his old lunacorn friend on the head. "You will go too, after all everyone deserves fresh air and tasty water."


	2. We've got to survive

_A/N: I still know nothing about metals, I just used the names because they sounded cool and have indeed high melting points. I don't know if they can go together and whatsoever. The invention mentioned: Youth Ray ('Rock-A-Bye Birdie')._

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**Chapter 1 - We've got to survive**

The concrete structure had been replaced by a construction of metals with a high melting point, for instance zirconium, hafnium and molybdenum. It became the standard building material and landscape component together with platinum cables and wires. The ground was covered with sand and sand only. The peculiar landmark of the new New York City happened to be the almost fully decomposed concrete wall also called the Great Levee. However, it greatness dated back to the time when both poles, North and South had been melting and the level of water in oceans had increased drastically. But at that time it could serve only as attraction with all the oceans gone. A 'funny' barrier between an upper desert and a lower one.

One by one, the penguins jumped up to the platform, covering their eyes from the strong moonlight until they would adjust to it. Rico choked up four sunglasses and each avian put it on, checking their surroundings for any changes.  
"Tonight it's shining stronger than yesterday..." Skipper remarked, watching the clear sky coloured pale azure. No one expected it to be dark blue. With the Moon reflecting the Sun, how could it be possible? Just like the explanation for the lack of clouds – no water meant no circulation of water. The only source of potable water became the ground water storage and the devices to condensate the minimal amount of water vapour in the air into actual water.

"Everyone is here, Skippah." Private waved first to Marlene, then to the lemurs and finally to the other zoosters. They left the shelter buildings and impatiently waited for Alice to distribute water and food. Later she would open the gates and if they were lucky, they would get few visitors as the city slowly 'woke up'.  
"Confirmed, Alice is on her positions." Kowalski watched the woman through his binoculars. "But...she hasn't opened the storage and approaches our habitat!" Putting the device away, the tallest penguin exclaimed in horror. Something was out of order which meant trouble. Although the world seemed long out of order anyway.  
"No waving, just smiling." Skipper ordered, watching the human. Stopping in front of their habitat, Alice threw a key-ring right under Skipper's feet.

"I know there is something up with you, penguins..." She started and the leader penguin thought 'And vice versa'. "...so I'll be honest. There is an order to put down all animals by the end of the week. I don't want to see that, I really don't, so I'm quitting. Here are the keys to the storage and..." Her voice cracked. Although she hated her job, the animals were like family to her with all the duties: spending time, feeding and taking care of those creatures, in other words Alice grew fond of them in her own special, twisted way. "...and do your thing." She finished, turning around and walking fast to the gate so no one would see the tears forming in her eyes.

The silence between the penguins got broken by the screams of other animals which had heard Alice's speech. Rushing towards the storage, the big mammals tried to break into the building, hitting the walls but the strong metal construction stayed deaf to their yells and plea.  
In the state of shock, the penguin commander made no move. Humans were going to kill them? But why? Could it be that the water reserves were even smaller than the army claimed to posses? Or maybe they wanted to use their corpses for a mysterious experiment to prevent the Sun from becoming gradually bigger? Skipper even liked the second option which crossed his paranoid mind.  
"Skippah, we have to do something! They're going to hurt themselves if they continue that." Private shook the leader by his flippers. The Brit always turned to Skipper during red alert situations and besides the young penguin didn't really grasp the idea of Alice's speech. 'Put them down', were the humans going to transport them to an underground zoo? Oh, that actually seemed like a good plan and Alice cried because it was hard for her to say 'goodbye' because someone else would take care of them in that new zoo. However, they had to make sure the other animals would last until that time. "Skippah!"  
"Rico!" Coming back to reality, the flat-headed penguin grabbed for the key-ring before jumping out of the team's habitat and sliding on the sand towards the storage building.  
The team followed the leader and when they took a halt in front of Ray and Burt, the weapon expert regurgitated his bazooka and fired a warning shot.

"Big boys stop. Alice gave /me/ the key to the storage, so I'm responsible for the amount of food and water in it. Now we'll distribute the food and water." Skipper wanted to add more but he sensed that the animals didn't listen to him anyway, he needed to calm them down first. Giving a signal to Kowalski to follow him, the leader murmured to Rico: "Don't hesitate to shoot if they go riot again." The psycho bird nodded enthusiastically, getting the elephant covered as he stayed outside with Private.

Sneaking into the storage through a small gap so the other animals wouldn't see what was inside, Skipper and Kowalski froze in place. Actually, only Skipper froze, the taller penguin felt like gagging after noticing and smelling the rotten food and the two medium sized barrels of water which were both half empty.  
"I knew it was too beautiful to be true." Skipper shook his head, examining a gone bad fruit.  
"Don't tell me the vision of being killed in four days seems beautiful to you." Kowalski remarked surprised, still holding onto his beak. The stench was hard to bear.  
"Not now, soldier. I have a group of hungry and mad animals outside and a load of rotten food. Options!"  
Nervously tapping with his left foot, Kowalski closed his eyes to not watch the terrifying dead nature picture in front of him until he got an idea. After a couple of seconds, the scientist came back with the Youth Ray he had took out from Rico's stomach.

Easy to conclude, the tall penguin turned the rotten food back to its fresher state. The two pushed a fair amount of it out of the building.  
"Before you bite in..." Skipper waited until the wave of euphoria faded and the animals allowed him to continue. "I want you to know that there is enough food for everyone. About water...I give you my word that we'll come up with something. I won't let any human hurt an animal. We've got to survive!" Skipper smiled at the cheer the zoosters gave. He felt that this authority and position were back on place. To his left he had a beaming Private, to his right – a worried Kowalski. Still eyeing the crowd which slowly disappeared, the leader directed his words to the second-in-command: "You and I won't leave your lab without a plan. I don't take suicide as an option. Capisci?"


	3. Crossing The Rubicon

A/N: I don't know if I get the opportunity to mention it in the fic so I'll do it here - the day is shorter because the Sun got closer and bigger, hence I decided that one hour equals 30 minutes. Songs mentioned: _Lazy Walk _by Joe Whiting and _What a Wonderful World_ by Louis Armstrong. Also the full-phase plasma blaster with repeating action and laser sights from the episode _Wishful Thinking._

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**Chapter 2 - Crossing The Rubicon**

Private waved steadily with his flipper at the animals the four penguins had left behind. Goodbyes seemed always hard for him but he still managed to muster a big smile across his beak because soon they would come back with the rescue. Yes, the previous night Kowalski was able to finally come up with a way to stop the huge Sun from destroying everything the small penguin loved. There was even a chance to reverse the process and make the star smaller. Full of hope and optimism, the youngest member of the commando stopped waving and looked ahead.

The flying scooter used for the trip hovered few centimeters above the artificially cooled sand. A couple of minutes and they would reach behind the area of safe sand and enter the plain terrain of blazing hot ground. The scooter zipped past individual human beings who didn't even spare a glance towards the penguins, dispassionately heading forward to an unknown direction. They caught Kowalski's attention and although he was holding the handle bars, he decided to learn the humans' destination place. An elder man slowly made his way to the Great Levee. The analyst tried to make sense of it but the conclusion he reached caused that he almost lost control over the scooter.  
"Eyes on the road, soldier!" Standing behind him, Skipper rebuked the scientist. Although technically speaking there was no road. Only sand and the Great Levee. Still, what he meant was that Kowalski shouldn't glance around and just focus on what waited in front of them. The leader looked back to check if Kowalski's short 'indisposition' affected their 'luggage'. What could their 'luggage' be, apart from the content of Rico's abdomen? Six plates made of titanium which were fastened to two long flying boards. This neo-trailer followed the scooter, thanks to the binding platinum cables. On top of the plates stood Rico, giving Skipper a sign that nothing happened, nor to him neither to the plates. The only two things allowed on the scooter were Private's Lunacorn and Kowalski's full-phase plasma blaster. Both of them insisted to keep the things close and not inside Rico's stomach.  
"Sorry, sir." The tall bird muttered an apology and turned his head. He knew what the humans were doing, where they were heading. A desperate suicide. People who were not physically or mentally strong enough to wait for their time to go and wanted to meet death halfway. Behind the Great Levee they would break they arms, legs and other body parts even before hitting the end of the precipice which got formed after the water had disappeared. If they were lucky, death would immediately come because of the injuries, if not, they had to wait for the sunrise to finish the work. Involuntary, Kowalski compared the poor wretches to rats because the rodents were leaving their sewage to die outside too.

The scientist assumed that Skipper also knew the reason for the despondent beings' last trip towards the abyss since the leader made sure Private wouldn't get interested in them.  
"Private, tell me if you're fully familiar with the details of Operation: Burning Cold." The flat-headed penguin commanded with his formal, military voice, causing the younger one to stand straight.  
"Yes, ehm...we're driving to the North, where that special soil is..." Private started but got stuck at the name of the soil."  
"Permafrost." Kowalski helped him out as he stole a last glance towards the elder man who after few more steps disappeared behind the wall of almost fully decomposed concrete. Cleaning his throat, the avian added: "Or cryotic soil."  
"Okay, so that...we're going to get that frost soil, dig it out and send it to space. It will make this barrier of frost that will stop the Sun." Gesticulating, Private said. Actually, he didn't understand the process of creating the frostsphere in the atmosphere, although Kowalski had presented calculations, equations and other explanations the previous night. All that mattered to the young soldier was that they got a solution and Kowalski knew what to do.  
"That's right, we're going to stop this madness." Skipper, patted Private's back, content with the answer he received.

The plain landscape didn't change for four hours and only the three wakes of the scooter and two boards suggested that the team moved forward at high-speed and didn't stop. The Moon didn't forget about them, still following and still shining at its best. The whole picture would remind us of a hot day in the Sahara but this was a hot night in the United States of America and as much as Kowalski wanted to focus, the heat gradually decreased his ability to concentrate. They had made a stop an hour earlier but he already felt that another break would come in handy. The music that reached his ears didn't help him much. Rico had choked up a stereo and picked some smooth jazz songs. At that time Joe Whiting suggested "a lazy walk down by the water tonight". Slowly the song got on the scientist's nerves. However, feeling annoyed, he didn't think about the physical exhaustion. Private just enjoyed the nonchalant tune, not caring about the lyrics. He rocked from side to side, trying to imitate the man's whistle.

"What's that?" Skipper froze in place, obviously spotting or hearing something strange. The youngest penguin wanted to reassure the leader that it was just his 'whistle' but suddenly he heard the weird noise too: "Something is coming, Skippah...look!" The noise of strong wind from the West. This time not a usual strong wind.  
"Sand Tornado!" Skipper yelled so Rico would hear him. The weapon expert rose to his feet and gaped at the approaching whirl of dust and sand which was almost as high as a skyscraper or at least Rico remembered that the buildings had been that tall. He would love to jump on the scooter and join his team mates but his order was to stay on the plates and watch them at all costs. He guessed that this happened to be the moment of truth.  
The commanding officer cursed under his breath and Kowalski could only agree with him. They were not able to outrun the tornado and the fact that the plates were light and could easily be carried away by the wind made their situation seem even worse. All depended on the platinum cables which secured the 'luggage'. And on Rico.  
One piece of the equipment already left the board. The stereo shared the last lines of "What a Wonderful World" before crushing on the ground. The pieces quickly found its way up to the air, joining the swirling sand of the tornado.


	4. An earthquake up in the air

A/N: Bit of foreshadowing in this one since the 'fun' will really start in next chapters. Kowalski's lucid dream was based on my experience with such dreams.  
NGR - New Generation Reactor (something like the nuclear reactor from _Madagascar 3_ but smaller).  
Title of this chapter inspired by the song _Earthquake_ by Labrinth ft. Tinie Tempah (personally I prefer the dubstep Noisia Remix of it, it's darker and simply has this something).

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**An earthquake up in the air**

"Rico, hold on those titans back there! Private, close your eyes and beak! Kowalski, get ready to turn on the NGR." Skipper ordered, getting a nod from Rico and Private. Kowalski, however, had objections: "I haven't got an opportunity to test the NGR yet. The system may be not stable and it can-" The flipper of silence came across the scientist's beak followed by a familiar glare that said 'shut up and do your thing, don't make me slap you again, soldier'.  
Rico could feel the Mohawk on his head twist and turn in every possible direction under the force of the wind. The tornado was coming closer and with it the burning hot sand which hit his body. The grains hurt him like needles on fire as he concentrated all his will not to open his beak to scream or his eyes to see if the hell he found himself inside would be gone soon. The plates quivered underneath him which seemed like a warning that they wouldn't put up a resistance for too long.  
The rest of the team wasn't in a better position since the scooter started to rise, losing the fight against the power of nature. The birds needed a way to flee away and they had it. Unfortunately, there was also a high risk that during the escape the energy of the reactor could slay them into pieces. However, so could also the tornado.  
Skipper's left flipper hold Private in place so the younger penguin wouldn't fall off or, even worse, fly up with the tornado. His right flipper shifted to jab the scientist's side to give him a sign. They had no more time to waste and the idea of dying without using their last chance made Skipper jab Kowalski once again.

Through the half-opened eyes the scientist looked ahead. It all depended on his driving skills because once the NGR would be activated nothing would stop it. They were surrounded by sand dunes or better said sand hills since the average height of them, to Kowalski's mathematical eye, could even reach 2000 metres. No child's play. Adding the fact that he got out of shape because of all the wasted time they had been sitting down in the HQ, it didn't give him any courage. Besides he was never a Dakar Rally fan anyway. But of course an order was an order and he understood that it seemed like the best and only reasonable option. Removing the cover, Kowalski slammed his flipper down onto the NGR button.

At first nothing happened and he started to think that, although it sounded ridiculous, so just...maybe...theoretically...the invention could not work. But in the next second it turned out that the reactor just needed to gain momentum and gather force to set it against the tornado. Skipper and Private held onto the scooter which speeded up and within seconds left the tornado behind but also within seconds was heading up a sand hill to finally face the problem of coming down from it. Kowalski's grip on the handle bars didn't lose as he wondered about taking the risk to jump. He didn't know how steep the slope was, how high the hill reached and how fast they moved. In one word – he lacked data and that made him chose the safer option, so to take a sharp turn to avoid going down the sand dune. However, he didn't take into account that the flying boards didn't have a reactor and the centrifugal force caused by the inertia of the plates and Rico on them worked during the turn to the analyst's disadvantage, pulling the whole team down the slope.

The dune proved to be a barchan and the birds were falling down its slip face with no control of the scooter and boards. Kowalski didn't want to see their sad end hence he didn't turn his head, holding the handle bars and keeping his eyes on the sky, he could only hear Skipper's voice ordering something.  
"Rico, awe me!" The weapon expert had better ideas than to die there and then. He threw a rope to Skipper, choking up a mattress. Since he would be the first to reach the ground the others would land on it but under one condition - they had to tie themselves to the rope and aim at the soft material. Casting the rope around himself and the two other penguins on the scooter, the commanding officer made a provisional lasso which did its work and provided a quite safe landing on the mattress. Unfortunately, the scooter crashed few metres away from them but didn't explode which meant that the engine could still be operative.

For a couple of minutes no one said anything, just lying on the soft mattress in the shade of the barchan, enjoying the fact that they were still breathing. Even Skipper allowed himself a moment of relaxation. Kowalski didn't fight away the drowsiness, dozing off. Earlier the adrenalin wouldn't let him close his eyes but because of the situation the whole globe was in, he learnt to appreciate the short moments of blissful peace. Besides they wouldn't continue their mission anyway until he would fix the scooter and he could do that in the plate shelter they would install before the sunrise. But until that a nap seemed necessary.

As the scientist had lucid dreams quite often he wasn't surprised that also this time he found himself in one of them. Aware that he was sleeping, most of the times he could rewind an event that he didn't like and change its course. However, this dream seemed different. He knew it wasn't reality but he didn't have a saying in the case of changing the scenery. And he would definitely change it since a lava river with no beginning and no end didn't seem very welcoming. He also couldn't find anything which would help him cross it. Over his shoulder, the penguin could see only black sand and stones. Something told him that it was no use to check this hypothesis. The river happened to be the answer and on the other side he could spot the sweet reward – another river, this time full of water. Real water, well as real as a dream water could be.  
The solution to the problem emerged from the lava, literally, although technically lava in normal circumstances would melt everything. But it was a dream, no logic there, go with it. So, the solution seemed like a black stone, followed by a white one and another black piece of rock. They had different size and shape, forming a strange path to the other side of the lava river. Kowalski shrugged, thinking that even though it could be a trap there was no other way whatsoever. So, he jumped on the first 'stone', then on the second and finally on the third one. The oddity of the rocks didn't put his mind at ease and caused that he looked back at the two other 'stones'.  
The 'stones' moved, emerging even more and reveling their true nature. The white stone turned out to be Rico's stomach. Kowalski could even see the weapon expert's beak and rather peaceful expression on his face with closed eyes. Next to him the scientist could make out Private's silhouette since only the Brit's back had surfaced. Analogically, Kowalski already knew on whose corpse we was standing or rather had been standing because the bird got shaken off Skipper's head, falling into the lava which changed into a river of blood. Apparently, the leader's head stuck out of the blood and started calling his name. In the river of blood, the scientist chaotically moved his body away from the other penguins, not sure what Skipper's intention was – to drown him in that cursed river or help him out of it. As the tall penguin had already drowned in the immersion of the dream, he was only aware of his erratic heartbeat, constantly interrupted by rough yells of his commanding officer:

"Kowalski!"


End file.
